


Unstuck

by Bella_Quill



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: And sometimes she hits some rough mental blocks, Bubblegum is a workaholic, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, This is was sorta written as a vent, sweet gals being pals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 21:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13579638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bella_Quill/pseuds/Bella_Quill
Summary: Bubblegum gets stuck on a project but Marceline is there to save her.





	Unstuck

The lab is silent and Bubblegum sits on the corner of her cot in matching silence. Something has gone wrong. She was in the middle of an experiment - a three day experiment - when something went wrong and the whole thing blew up in her face. Literally. So Bubblegum is sitting on the edge of her cot, with her supplies strewn about her, staring at the wall. At least, her head is directed at the wall, but her eyes have been unfocused for minutes, maybe hours.

She is supposed to be thinking. She knows that she sat down to think, to go over her calculations, to find a mistake so that she can start again. But of the thoughts that make it past the blank grey wall in her mind, none of them are even close to an analysis of error, and she knows that she will not start again.

The lab isn’t quite silent, it never is. There are the whirring sounds of lights and freezers, the slow drip of precipitating liquids, the ticks of several clocks, all in synch. But it feels profoundly silent, as if Bubblegum’s mind is projecting white noise into the space around her, muffling it with her stagnation.

She is sitting erect, one hand resting against her stomach, the other holding a bunch of her lab coat on her upper leg. Feet touching the ground, back straight, head to the wall.  
She has no idea how long she has sat like this. She cannot move.

The silence is broken by a rattle coming from the direction of the bedroom. Bubblegum tenses internally, her mind becoming slightly more aware, though her muscles do not move. She realizes that her calf is aching.

The rattle returns, and then a sound like a window being forced open. Bubblegum knows enough to panic slightly, to wonder what it would be like to be caught like this. But her head is facing away from the bedroom door and she cannot move. She almost tries, but finds she cannot even try. Tears are rising in her eyes.

“Peebs?”

Bubblegum almost moves then, she almost chokes and her hand almost tightens on her coat. _No, no, go away, not now,_ she thinks desperately. She holds still, telling herself that it is deliberate, wishing herself out of existence.

“PBubs? You in there?”

The voice is getting louder. There are no sounds of footsteps (of course there aren’t, damn her), so it is only by the voice that Bubblegum can tell how close she is to being found.

The sound of the door opening. A soft repeat of her name. A gasp.

And Marceline is beside her, in front of her, assaulting Bubblegum’s gaze with the harsh lines of her face, forcing her wet eyes to focus. _Move, speak, move_ , she is telling herself. But Marceline’s hands are already at her face and she feels it melt and then one hand drops to her own and it unclenches and her hair is brushing her cheek and she is opening her mouth but Bubblegum can’t feel the words and finally she collapses into open arms, the tears losing their hold and slipping loose.

“Bonnie, oh-” Marceline is pushed back a little through the air by Bubblegum’s sudden collapse but she quickly drifts forward, closing her arms so that she is holding Bubblegum against the cot, supporting her.

“Bonnie, how long have you been here?”

She’s speaking at a whisper now and Bubblegum is still crying and her face is in Marcy’s chest so of course she can’t talk so she cries more, mortified and relieved. She’s surrounded by waves of black and Marceline’s hand is stroking the top of her head and her own arms without her knowledge had thrown themselves around Marceline’s stomach, hands now clenching her dark tank top.

Bubblegum’s brain is turning back on even as her muscles shake. Marceline in a tank top, bare arms, it must be night time. Of what day? When had she even stopped working? What had she missed?

Bubblegum is aware of her feet lifting off the ground, and Marceline’s arms straining slightly as she lifts her up. She makes sure to turn so that her face is still buried. She can hear Marceline’s comforting sounds, hear her anxiety, but she refuses to look. She loses herself in black hair as she is gently carried out of the lab, back through the door to her room, placed onto her bed.

As she is lowered, she lets go of Marceline quickly, her arms limp. She keeps her eyes screwed shut for a moment, but realizing she probably can’t get away with that, she opens them, finding Marceline’s face floating quite close to hers. Her eyes are so full of worry, Bubblegum hates herself and she almost turns over with a cowardly desire to keep hiding. She finds that she can’t.

There are dried tear tracks burning on Bubblegum’s cheeks. She sniffs. Her eyes are closing again.

“Princess?” Marceline’s voice is so low, so sweet.

Bubblegum can’t - she just can’t. She rolls over.

There is a dreadful pause. Bubblegum wills herself to sleep, feels herself begin to cry again ever so softly.

Marceline’s weight falls beside her. She falls asleep.

 

When she wakes up the first thing Bubblegum feels is the stiff stickiness of dried sugar around her eyes. The next things she feels is the ice cold weight against her back. In an instant her brain is back, whirring at high speed, and she is completely awake. She sorts through the emotions and analyses competing to be examined first. The dominant feeling is a harsh and burning embarrassment, prevailing as her memories of the night before assault her mind. She lets her logic get to work on that, trying to push it back with the blooming warmth that came from the cold that meant that Marceline had not left her.

At that thought Bubblegum feels Marceline stir beside her. Bubblegum remembers how she carried her the night before, remembers her voice through the haze, but remembers that there is so much to do to make up for the time she wasted. She opens her eyes, adjusts quickly to the light, and rolls herself out of bed.

Marceline rolls over at the absence of Bubblegum. “Bonnie?”

Her voice is so low in the morning, so smooth that Bubblegum feels as though she has to avert her gaze.

“Good morning, Marceline.” She makes her voice cheery. No, her voice is cheery, she realizes that she is already feeling a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Bonnie,” Marceline sighs, her voicing oozing relief, “how are you doing?”

Bubblegum sneaks a look at the bed. She wishes she hadn’t. Marceline’s dark tank top is half off her shoulder and her wild hair is like an avalanche or a stormcloud, coating the pillow with her feel.

“I’m-fine,” Bubblegum replies, feeling its truth, “I’m just going to change my clothes I think.”

“Back to the lab?” Marceline asks softly. Bubblegum feels something in her stomach, a seed of fear tainting her joy. She takes a breath, lets it pass.

“Yes. I’m going to get back into the swing of things. The work has to be done after all.” She turns away from Marceline back towards the wardrobe, afraid that her face with reveal something, though she doesn’t quite know what.

“You want me to stay?”

A thousand thoughts run through Bubblegum’s brain, thoughts about distractions, and clumsy vampires knocking over beakers, and how behind she was on schedule, but a sun was replacing the fear in her stomach, burning with a familiar grey cool.

“Promise not to get in the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This fic was written as a bit of a vent when I got stuck staring at a wall for a while without moving, and though I didn't quite have a Marceline writing was a great way to get myself "unstuck". This is the first Bubbline snippet I've actually managed to finished, but I hope I end up publishing some more! If you'd be interested in seeing any more, please leave kudos or a comment, it would really motivate me!


End file.
